> If it was supporting pure research - finding great researchers and freeing them from the grant treadmill - I'd be supportive, but this doesn't sound like that.
Same here. I am all for more research but we want more transparency, not less.
> Ministers will announce plans tomorrow for an £800 million scientific research agency legally entitled to invest in projects that are likely to fail and which will be exempted from freedom of information laws.
This makes no sense to me. Why would they need to be exempt from freedom of information?
> It will be exempt from rules designed to prevent taxpayers’ money from being invested in projects with little chance of success. Ministers hope that the agency, to be set up next year, will produce next-generation technology.
This I completely support. From what I understand, the COVID vaccine wouldn't be here if it wasn't for some scientists working on some seemingly dead-end path for years.
Overall, I don't understand this initiative at all. The last thing I'd want is pulling funding away form fundamental research and putting it in some Instagram clone. I'd even be OK if this money went to some kind of James Bond/Quartermaster/DARPA thing instead.
The Federal Reserve Bank in the US is exempt from Freedom of Information laws, and the reasoning is to prevent social pressure and politicization from influencing monetary policy.
Perhaps that is the UK's reason, besides wanting to keep projects related to national security or industry classified from foreign eyes. US government research grants often have pundits pointing out how trivial and wasteful they seem at first glance, and it sometimes leads to grants being redirected or cancelled entirely.
Same here. I am all for more research but we want more transparency, not less.
> Ministers will announce plans tomorrow for an £800 million scientific research agency legally entitled to invest in projects that are likely to fail and which will be exempted from freedom of information laws.
This makes no sense to me. Why would they need to be exempt from freedom of information?
> It will be exempt from rules designed to prevent taxpayers’ money from being invested in projects with little chance of success. Ministers hope that the agency, to be set up next year, will produce next-generation technology.
This I completely support. From what I understand, the COVID vaccine wouldn't be here if it wasn't for some scientists working on some seemingly dead-end path for years.
Overall, I don't understand this initiative at all. The last thing I'd want is pulling funding away form fundamental research and putting it in some Instagram clone. I'd even be OK if this money went to some kind of James Bond/Quartermaster/DARPA thing instead.